Chapter 28: Violated
"Why is anypony wasting their time trying to save ponykind?"
I glanced around, noting the scenery. Already I was recognizing landmarks - small, insignificant ones. I could see I would be getting to know this route a lot better, as would Demi. Whether Lana and Saffron would continue to trek backwards and forwards with us, time alone would tell. It was handy to have a heavy hitter with us, but then, I was a heavy hitter too, being a cyborg and all. Saffron was no longer bound by his word to assist me. He had done as he had agreed, and accompanied my mother and I to the last place in Equestria to which I had wanted to go, my personal hell, as it were. Fortunately, my fears of the place were unfounded, and even the villain of the piece, my father, was a reformed unicorn.
"It's too bad Stable Lab Four isn't closer to Stable Four," Demi commented as she paced along beside me. "At the rate we are going it will take forever to get all the mares there for surgery."
"Arrgh!" Saffron's voice interrupted. He was behind us, trotting alongside Lana. "All this Stable Lab Four and Stable Four stuff is doing my head in!" he complained. "Of all the stables in the wasteland, how come we get to deal with two with the same damn number?"
"Someone failed their luck roll?" I suggested, thinking back to the popular stable pastime of role-playing. "Why don't we simply call them the stable and the lab?"
"Please do," Saffron responded.
"What do you mean by 'luck roll'?" Lana asked.
"When I was a youngster, we used to play these games where one pony would be the world while all the others were players. The world would describe a situation in which we players were characters. We then had to solve the problems the the world presented us with. When it came to skills, to see if we were good enough to solve a problem or shoot something, we would roll a dice. Sometimes, if we did not have enough skill, we would roll against our luck instead."
"You had time to do stuff like that?" Lana asked in wonder, thinking about the constant state of siege under which she had grown up.
"We were actually encouraged to do it, as it kept our minds active, and more importantly, was a good way to pass time without using up the stable's limited resources," I explained.
"I played a few games too," Demi added, "even though I grew up on the surface as an outcast."
Lana was silent for a moment. "Ahh! I think I understand," she commented. "You were telling interactive stories!"
"Yup."
"Even we did that, although we never called it role-play, and we never used dice. For us it was a way to teach the foals," Lana said.
Our small talk continued as we walked the last mile or so to the stable. A glance at my Pipgirl confirmed we were nearly there. I had remembered to register the Stable Four marker globally, so now anyone with a Pipbuck or similar equipment would be informed of their location when they visited. Some would marvel in wonder at the addition of a marker that had not previously existed, pondering what magic had made it appear. Meh, I wasn't going to tell them how it was done.
Thinking about Pipbucks and Pipgirls reminded me of Saffron's refusal to take one back when we had uncovered the cache of them and the upgraded Pipbucks in the rubble of Stable Lab Four a couple of days prior.
"You know, Saffron," I said, "you could have taken one of the upgraded Pipbucks, even if you didn't want the Pipgirl anymore."
"My suit has a similar system built into it, so I really don't need one," he insisted. "And taking even one of those would be continuing my former Steel Ranger mission of acquiring technology from the wasteland merely for the sake of hoarding it. It would be better saved for another pony that may need it in the future."
"Okay," I acquiesced. Saffron was determined to be a changed stallion.
Red Tape had insisted that the particular cache that we, as in Demi and myself, had uncovered were ours to do with as we saw fit. So far, they had been distributed to the mares with us, them being Lana and Demi. That left a lot of spares. Rather than bring Pipgirls with us, we had decided to leave most of them at the lab. I thought we could issue one to each of the stable mares after they were healed by the auto-clinic. Issuing them before they were healed would be likely to cause mass depression. I could imagine the subduing effect of seeing a page full of health warnings and lists of crippled limbs every time I looked at my Pipgirl. In fact, I didn't have to imagine it. My display had one limb permanently listed as crippled. I had reached the point where I could ignore the warning, accepting that as part of my "healthy" condition. After all, crippled or not, I could now walk on that leg without problems. At least with the old Pipbucks that some of the Stable Four mares were wearing, you had to actually lift your forehoof to be able to read the display instead of having it magically presented in your field of vision. Mostly the mares wearing them were the more mobile ones that were doing sentry duty, the advantages of access to the Eyes Forward Sparkle and Stable Arcane Targeting Systems outweighing any negative effects they may engender. I was going to give them to Ruby and Gadget, both of whom were fully mobile, and one to Cherry Sundae. I was curious to see if she could understand the mentally projected E.F.S. and S.A.T.S. displays, even though she had always been blind. It could be a useful first step in preparing her for cybernetic eyes.
At last we were on the home stretch of our journey. Expecting I may find a stable four patrol, I checked my E.F.S., finding a single friendly marker. Unperturbed, I continued forward until a pony, a small unicorn colt I didn't know, leapt out at us. He was levitating an old .32 caliber revolver, and pointed it at us, or more specifically, at me.
"This is a stick-up!" he announced loudly. "Nopony move!"
Surprisingly, no pony in my party did move. Perhaps they were observant enough to see the situation for what it was. Perhaps they didn't consider this colt to be enough of a threat to bother with; possibly they didn't wish to use violence against a minor; or maybe, just maybe they were doing exactly as he had instructed.
"You know it is really dangerous to point a gun at anypony, especially when you aren't planning on shooting them," I responded.
The colt groaned, looking somewhat defeated. "H...how did you know?" the he asked. Nonetheless, he kept the weapon aimed in my direction.
"I can see that four of your chambers are empty from here, and even if you do have a bullet, you'd need to pull the trigger five times to fire it. In that time, we would have decided you are actually hostile, and put so many bullets into you that you would be dead. Extremely dead," I explained. He still didn't register as a threat on the Eyes Forward Sparkle. Even if I hadn't noticed the lack of bullets, his body language was all wrong.
"Damn," he said. "You noticed. How am I ever meant to get enough caps to afford bullets, if I don't have any bullets in the first place?"
"How many caps do you have now?" I asked.
"Just one," he admitted.
I smiled. "I'll tell you what. I'll sell you a single bullet for that cap. That will be a good start, won't it?"
"You will?" he asked, his eyes lighting up. Within moments the revolver had been lowered, and a bottle cap proffered.
I reached back into my battle saddle and retrieved a 10mm bullet, swapping it for the colt's cap. Instantly, he opened his weapon and tried to insert the 10mm round, with no success. His hole body slumped with disappointment. I could hear quiet snickering from the others in my team.
"It doesn't fit," he complained, looking up at me with big round eyes.
"Oh, my bad. You need a .32 round, not a 10mm round," I explained. "I can sell you one of those if you like, but it will cost you two caps."
"But I don't have any caps left!" he whined.
"I'll tell you what. I'm in good mood today, so I'll swap you six .32 rounds for that old broken-down pistol. That's a whole twelve caps worth!" I offered, immediately extracting half a dozen rounds I had salvaged from a raider or slaver; I forgot where from exactly. As I never used the rounds myself, I usually paid them little attention.
As soon as the youngster saw the bullets, his telekinesis reached out and grasped them. That was a done deal in my mind, so I whisked his pistol from his grasp. That was when he realized he'd been swindled. It didn't help that Saffron collapsed in a heap, guffawing for what he was worth, no longer able to contain his amusement.
"I hope you just learned something, young fella," Saffron managed between laughs.
"Seriously," I asked, "why are you trying to rob us? Where are your parents? Why are you out here alone?"
The crestfallen youth looked at me for a few seconds, trying to judge if he trusted me enough to confide in me. "I'm a merchant's son. Was a merchant's son. Two days ago raiders attacked our caravan, and killed everypony. I only escaped because I was one hill over relieving myself. I hid when I heard all the shooting, and didn't come out until there were no more voices. DJ Pon3 says not to trust raiders, so I didn't take any chances they would see me. When I did go back to the caravan, there was nothing left, apart from blood, and lots of drag marks in the sand. And that one stupid old gun where it had fallen among the grass." He choked back a sob, then failed on the next. "Damn, I'm too old to cry!" he bawled.
Raiders? In this area? That was worrying. The ponies of my team immediately dropped their casual attitude, pulling weapons and checking them over for readiness. They were ready of course, but the one time you didn't check would be the one time you forgot to reload after the previous skirmish.
"We should get moving," I said. "Perhaps the young stallion would like to accompany us to Stable Four," I suggested.
"NO!" he screamed, rapidly backing away. "That's where the raiders came from!"
If felt like my heart had stopped as a wall of adrenaline fueled ice washed through me. It couldn't be. No way. They had been fine just a few days ago. They had guns, and... their three heavy hitters, Saffron Lee and myself, had left them to go to the lab. All the same, these mares knew how to fight. They had survived the robots... but raiders were outside their experience. Perhaps they had trusted somepony they should not have. I was off and running before I could even think of another question to ask the colt.
"Grab the kid and follow me!" I managed as I ran. I noticed there was a pony only a pace behind me. A quick glance revealed it was Demi, worry written all over face. Saffron and Lana would have to deal with the youngster, and apparently they managed that in record time, because very shortly Lana was pacing beside me, the kid clinging to her back. Her bouncy steps allowed her to drive the wheelchair faster than a pony could run. Saffron, despite his best efforts, took longer to catch up.
Seeing the top of the stable's observation tower come into the view, I slid to a stop, indicating the others should also do so. I crouched low, and extracted Victory, my sniper rifle, from my battle saddle. "Wait here, or stay low," I instructed. Lana nodded, unloaded the colt, then hit the release on her wheelchair so she could crouch like the rest of us. I scrambled up the rise that was blocking my view of the stable, bringing Victory's scope to my eye. Through it, I could see that raiders had indeed attacked. Crude graffiti had been painted onto the barrier that had been built around the service shaft. On the observation platform was a stallion I did not recognize, his mustard coat covered in scars, and featuring a cutie mark of a bloody knife. His attire was also of the piecemeal style typically favored by raiders. Chains were strung up to the post the cameras were mounted on, a pony's corpse, also dressed in raider armor dangling from it. Beside and below it were the corpses of ponies I assumed had been the traders, the colt's family. Hanging from the platform itself were - shit! Violet and Ruby. Both had been carved up in the most horrendous ways, skin hanging down, blood dripping from the open wounds. Dripping? Were the mares still alive? With wounds like that, they were dead, even if their hearts hadn't stopped beating yet. Fuck these raiders! I carefully targeted the bastard on the platform, and gently squeezed the trigger. BOOM. Victory wasn't quiet, but the raider never heard her bark because his head exploded in a bloody cascade before the sound reached him.
"Cover me!" I told Demi, dropping Victory in front of her before I leapt over the rise and ran as fast as I could towards the stable. I could hear cussing, and calls of challenge as the distance between the barricade and myself shrank. I aimed both my combat shotgun and Cybercorn carbine towards where the opening in the barricade was, firing both the moment the door opened. Neighs of pain and anger resulted, followed moments later by a volley of poorly aimed shots fired off in desperation as the raiders sought cover from my onslaught.
I crashed through the opening, knocking the door out of the way, spinning, and shooting at everything that moved. Bullets and shot rained around me and I felt as some of them struck my barding. I'd survived worse, much worse, so I didn't spare it more than a passing thought. One fellow survived my attack, though was clearly wounded. He had backed himself against the barricades, and was holding his forelegs up to protect his face. "I don't want to die!" he pleaded as I slammed him with my pushing spell. His legs were forced away from his face, and he stared at me, terror in his wide eyes. I walked up to him and pulled his combat knife from its sheath.
"You don't want to die?" I snarled. "Those merchants and mares you have strung up on the tower didn't want to die either! Did you even consider that when you were slicing them up?" I demanded as took hold of his knife with my mouth and started hacking through the armor on his chest. He squirmed and whimpered as the tip of the blade pierced his hide again and again.
"We were only kidding, you know! We don't mean any harm!" the fool pleaded.
Releasing the knife from my mouth, I snapped, "You are so fucked in the head if you expect me to believe any of the shit that comes out of your mouth." I bashed him across the face with my prosthetic to get the point home. "You do know I'm joking too. I won't damage a hair of your mane. After all, I don't mean any harm either." I think that terrified him even more, if the relieving of his bowels was any indication.
I set to work again, working the knife back and forwards against the leather and rubber of which his armor was made. The damn rubber was blunting the knife. Finally, with the last strap of his armor cut, it fell free of his torso, and I pressed the knife to his sternum, working it side to side, leaning against it as the battered blade slowly cut though the cartilage of his ribcage. He screamed in pain. Excellent. That was the idea after all. I released the blade, its tip now embedded in his chest, and it stayed there. I placed my good forehoof against it, and pressed again, extracting more screams from him. Blood sprayed in my face, the final straw for my sanity in this horrific scene. What I was doing was as bad as what the raiders themselves did. How could I have fallen down to this disgusting level of behavior? Wasteland 1, Anne 0. Or was that Wasteland 49556, Anne 12? My conscious mind decided it really didn't want to be part of this anymore, and stepped back, allowing the animal the raiders had released to continue its assault. I found myself humming a familiar tune. Oh, I knew the words to this. I was sure I could adjust it to suit the situation.
"Hush now, quiet now," I quietly sung to the raider, rearing up to hold my prosthetic against his lips as I worked the knife deeper into his chest with my magic.
"It's time to lay your evil head." His expression had gone beyond that of terror.
"Hush now, quiet now," I began to work the knife up towards his heart, making sure he felt the pain he loved to inflict.
"It's time you were very dead." He moaned, struggling against my spell, and I let it weaken a little giving him some false hope.
"Though your life be endin'," He thrashed harder.
"may you never sleep!" I twisted the knife, splitting the cartilage, and pushed harder against his muzzle as he tried to scream. "Shhhh, shhh."
"Another day of murdering behind you!" I paused in my onslaught on his body, and stared into his disbelieving eyes.
"When did life get this deep?" I sang.
"I pray the pain of hell will find you!" He stopped struggling, not enough blood remaining in is system to keep it functional.
"I won't lose any sleep." I finished, releasing my spell, and letting his corpse slide to the ground.
Outside the barrier, I could hear the heartbreaking cries of Lana as she recognized her friends as the victims hanging from the tower. Hearing her, I wondered if she was going to snap and go on a rampage like me, or if she would lose all will to fight. The wasteland was so cruel, allowing them to taste freedom from persecution, only to pull this nasty turn of events as they took their first steps towards recovery. Fuck the wasteland. I had more of its minions to go kill.
"It's clear up here!" I called to the others. "I'm going down the shaft."
"Be careful!" Demi called back.
"It's too late for 'careful'," I muttered.
"You should wait for backup," Saffron suggested.
"You can shoot any bastards you find, assuming I miss any," I shouted back, turning to the service elevator shaft down into the stable. My conscious mind tried to analyze the events that had led to this disaster. How many Stable Four mares had been killed while I was selfishly off trying to get my mother fixed? A damned fools errand that had turned out to be. All that had done was kill any hope that my mother could return, and left the poor Stable Four ponies at the mercy of a wasteland they were ill equipped to fend off. I had been so right yesterday when I told Demi that I was no hero. Also... those damned alicorns had delayed us too. If they hadn't maybe things would be different now. Perhaps we could have saved more of the stable mares had we got here a day earlier. Celestia help the next alicorn that bothered me. Next time I wouldn't hide. I'd introduce the flying freak to a bullet from Victory.
Stopping at the edge of the shaft, I looked down, trying to ascertain the fastest way down without a unicorn to levitate me. There was the partially completed elevator, a poor choice as it would trap me for the duration of the descent, assuming it worked, and there was a tatty looking rope ladder, probably supplied by the raiders. As I contemplated my next action, a raider emerged from the stable door below, walking out onto the platform. Any moment she would spot me. Well, there was always the obvious way of getting down there unassisted: jumping. I cast a levitation spell on myself, and jumped. I didn't expect the spell would work. I had never been able to master levitating myself, and I'd tried often enough. Nonetheless, I hoped the spell would slow me down a fraction, or otherwise landing would be painful. The other thing I was counting on was a the raider herself. No matter how fast I was falling, she would provide some sort of soft landing. My aim was good, and I hit the raider hard, flattening her, crushing her, breaking her bones, rupturing her skin, and generally splattering her like an egg hit with a mallet, well, maybe not that much, but she was quite dead. It was no surprise that the impact left me stunned, and I collapsed on top of her, definitely feeling worse for wear. I knew my anger would have me back on my hooves in a few moments, so I waited while my body and brain dealt with the pain and agreed on what worked and what didn't.
"Daisy, what the fuck are you doing out there?" a voice called from the gloom within the stable, accompanied by the sounds of approaching hoofsteps. Moments later another mare appeared out the door. Like the mare I was lying on, she was a pale cream color, with a brownish green mane and tail. I wondered if they were related. Sisters perhaps? "Eww, what the fuck? Daisy?" She paused for a moment, glancing up at the tower above us and the corpses hanging from the chains, looked at the edge of the shaft, then looked back at me dressed in my barding and wearing a battle saddle, the whole lot covered in blood. "Shit, what a way to go: getting squished by a falling corpse," she concluded. She looked up the shaft again, and listened for a moment. All was apparently quiet. "Well, little intruder, let's see what's in that saddle of yours."
Typical raider: not a tear shed for her fallen companion. The similarities in coat color must have been pure coincidence. From where I lay, I targeted her with the combat shotgun, and let her have two shots in the chest. The first shot elicited a shout of pain and a brief burst of profanity. The second silenced it. She slumped to the floor in front of me, quite dead.
"One less fucking raider in Equestria," I muttered. I struggled to my feet, finding I must have knocked a couple of my systems out of wack, as I felt somewhat unsteady. I would worry about it later. At the moment there were more raiders to kill. I scurried forward, staying low, and as quiet as I could, announcing myself to the next raider I saw with two more shots from the combat shotgun.
There were no more raiders in the service tunnel, so I made my way down to where it connected to the corridors of Level One. Murmurings pointed me towards the vestibule with the main stable door, and the atrium, across from it. From which room the sound was coming, if not both, I couldn't tell, so I glanced at my E.F.S. Assuming none of the walls were blocking the signals, and I wasn't imagining phantoms because of the echoes, the vestibule was currently empty. I sneaked up to the door into it and ducked inside. A quick look confirmed the E.F.S. was correct, and that I was alone in here, apart from a couple of ammo boxes, if they could be counted as company. The main door had been closed again, and the control panel was sporting some damage, suggesting that repairs would be needed before the door could be opened again. There was a flicker of hope in my heart. Perhaps the stable ponies had retreated behind that door, sabotaging the controls as they escaped. I would get back to them after I dealt with the remainder of the wasteland scourge that was currently inhabiting the stable. Turning my attention to the ammunition boxes, I picked the locks on them, a relatively easy task on this occasion, and opened them to see what was inside. Grenades: a dozen of them. I didn't recall finding any in the stable before, so they had probably been brought down here by the raiders. Not fancying myself as a thief, I decided I would return the grenades to the raiders, less the pins of course. I rather liked the idea of collecting the pins for myself.
I crept back to the door to the corridor, and checked my E.F.S. Red marks indicated there were at least half a dozen raiders down there. The total absence of amber marks suggested that there were no friendlies I need concern myself with. I levitated out the first grenade and pulled the pin. I gave it a gently lob across the corridor and down the steps into the atrium, aiming towards one of the red markers. Moments later, its pin extracted, I tossed the second grenade, this time bouncing it off the wall of the stair well, so that it would end up near another of the red markers. I was tossing the third grenade when the first exploded, bringing shocked responses from the unsuspecting raiders. Before they could gather their senses, the second also went off. I bounced a fourth grenade down the stairs, feeling satisfaction as the third exploded, extinguishing a couple of the markers. The remaining markers spread wide, out of effective range of the grenades, so I crept across the hallway and down the stairs to the atrium, stopping just short of the bottom. I was preparing a grenade when another landed on the stairs above me, bouncing down towards my hooves. Dropping what I was holding, I tried to push it away with my magic, but it bounced straight back. That was when I realized what I had just dropped was another grenade, also counting down.
SHIT!
I leaped into the atrium, running as hard as I could, which wasn't as fast as I would have liked, courtesy of my drop down the elevator shaft not long before. A few bullets whizzed past me, but I ignored them. The two grenades were of a greater concern. My whole being tensed, waiting for the inevitable. I didn't have to wait long. BOOM, BOOM. The next thing I knew was that I was flying across the atrium, leaving a trail of blood droplets. Putting my forehooves up to protect my face, I tried to roll into a ball, but - THUD - the impact with the opposite wall ended that. I flopped down onto the floor like a rag doll. A quick glance at my E.F.S. told me I wouldn't be getting up in a hurry. Most of the display was red. My head was okay, as was my left foreleg. The right was already crippled, and now my other two legs and torso had joined it. My general health, while poor, wasn't enough to trigger any of the automated self defense mechanisms, more's the pity. This was one occasion I wouldn't mind exploding.
"You've gotta be kiddin' me!" one of the raiders exclaimed as the three remaining raiders converged on me. "A fucking kid just wiped half of us out?"
One kicked me a couple of times. I bit his rear leg for his efforts. Hmm, he didn't taste bad! I may as well top up my blood while they beat me. I may be able to hold on that bit longer! I was rewarded with more profanity, and the stallion I was attached to doing his best to dislodge me. I fired my shotgun for good measure, and that startled him, making him jump, pulling me along with him. The other two raiders leaped back.
"Feisty!" one stated. You better believe it bud! He pulled a pistol and took a pot-shot at me. I don't know if he hit, as I didn't feel anything.
"Idiot!" the stallion I was draining snapped. "Don't bloody shoot at me! Hit her with a bat or something!" he instructed, again trying to shake me loose.
"Sure thing, Blaster," one responded. "I'm surprised she hasn't expired yet, with all the blood she's lost."
"oooerh, shit," Blaster moaned, suddenly collapsing. He wouldn't be much of a problem anymore, and I felt better for it.
I released him, and turned my head towards the two others, one now brandishing a bat. "This blood ain't all mine you know," I smirked. "I've really enjoyed hacking and blasting my way through all of your murderous buddies up stairs. It's about time you pricks felt what it was like to be taken down by a raider, and I AM THE RAIDER FROM HELL!" It would have been more effective had I been able to stand, but I didn't care. I started blasting at them with the shotgun again, causing them to step back. As I was, I didn't have much chance of aiming properly, but the odd pellet was hitting them, either directly, or ricocheting of the floor or wall. Beside me, Blaster struggled for a moment, then let all the air out of his lungs in a long sigh. He didn't breathe in again.
"He was delicious!" I taunted the other two. "Who's going to be this vampire's next meal?"
"Fuck, just shoot her," one told the other as she went for her pistol. "Blaster's dead so it don't matter if we hit h...." Her head exploded, as a bullet from Victory tore through it. Saffron's second shot killed the remaining raider. Looking across, I saw Saffron on the stairs, Victory gripped in his mouth. Demi was a couple of paces behind him.
I simply let go then, and my head flopped onto the floor. "That's all of them on this level, but there may be more downstairs," I said, "but I'm in no condition to go looking."
Demi ran across to me, fishing a super restoration potion out of her saddlebag as she did. Immediately she started feeding it to me. After the first two sips, I pushed the potion away, and concentrated my magic on extracting the bullets and pieces of shrapnel my body had accumulated, each one inflicting a little extra pain on the way out. As I dropped the last piece of shrapnel on the floor, Demi again pushed the super restoration potion to my lips, and I drank enthusiastically. I have to admit it felt so good to have all of my wounds close up and vanish, but the brief euphoria subsided the moment I noticed Lana had not accompanied them down here. No doubt she was still up on the surface with the bodies of her friends.
Saffron placed Victory in front of me, then donned his helmet. "I'll sweep any other scum out of this place," he told me, then turned towards the stairs.
That was when the self loathing hit me. I had been no better than the raiders I had massacred. My mind tried to excuse my actions. These bastards had deserved it. I had just saved the lives of their future victims. Whatever. Each time I was forced to exterminate other ponies, a little of my own soul died. I wondered how much of it was left. How long did I have until I killed one pony too many and had to be put down myself? I shuddered, then began to quietly cry. Demi tried to wrap her wing around me, and hug me, but I pushed her away.
"I'm disgusting Demi. Look at me. I look just like those bastards," I quietly stated.
"You may be covered in blood, but with them the foulness goes soul deep," she countered.
"It doesn't make it okay though. I still went on a murdering rampage."
"Killing is never okay, but it sometimes we have no choice. And then there are other times were we do have a choice, and as hard and despicable as it may seem, choosing to kill is the right thing to do."
"But I did this because they killed ponies we were meant to be protecting!" I whined. "It was personal! I went too far!"
"No, NO! You did it because they were despicable and needed to be put down. You did it because they were breakers of the Equestrian laws, and worse, the laws of decency. They eat ponies, Anne! They are so perverted they think it is all right to kill and eat other ponies!"
"And me sucking the blood and life out of them is any different?" I muttered.
"Yes, dammit, it is different. If you were the same as them, we wouldn't be having this conversation!" Demi stated. "Now get the hell on your hooves, and let's go see if we can help some pony, Lana perhaps. Oh, and you might want to clean yourself so you don't give poor Lana another reason to freak out."
I struggled to my hooves, and took a couple of wobbly shuffles towards the stairs. My rear end was not responding very well at all. Sure, the potion had done a wonderful job of repairing the flesh, but I wasn't all flesh. Another stint in the auto-clinic at the lab was probably in order, assuming I couldn't fix the damage by goring myself again, and using my metal manipulating magic to reform any damaged components. It would have to wait for later though. I wanted to get up to the surface and see if there was anything that could be done for Violet and Ruby, though in my heart I knew that all I would be able to do was bury them. I struggled up the stairs, and made my way towards the closest dead raider.
"You're still gory," Demi reminded me.
"I know, I know," I sighed. "I just thought if I cleaned myself where there was already a mess, there would be less work later." That said, I stopped in front of the corpse, braced myself, then gave myself a thorough blasting with my cleaning magic, stripping the mess out of my weapons, barding and my coat. Finally, looking and feeling much cleaner, I staggered on my way.
"You look like a bed-head," Demi chuckled.
"Meh," I replied. "Cosmetics can wait until I feel pretty inside."
Demi fell in alongside me and we made our way towards the elevator shaft to the surface. As I passed it, I tried the call button for internal elevator to the stable's lower levels. There was no response.
"Hang on, Demi," I said, pressing my horn to the button and projecting my consciousness inside, tracing the dead wiring. I followed it all the way down to the circuit breaker in the main breaker bank near the power source. It had been disconnected. That meant the stable mares had probably switched it off themselves. In all likelihood, they had regrouped at their old headquarters on Level Eight, and were holding out against the raiders there. Violet and Ruby must have stayed up on Level One buying time for the others to escape.
"Will Saffron be okay without backup?" Demi asked, thinking of our friend tackling the remaining raiders alone.
I looked at Demi as if that had been the craziest question I had ever heard. "You wanna provide backup?"
"Yeah, yeah, of course he's going to be just fine," Demi said. "Unlike you, he is in power armor, and equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Forget I asked."
Arriving at the shaft to the surface, I looked up at the hole above. Getting down here had been as easy as falling. Unfortunately, the option did not exist for the return trip. I didn't fancy trying to climb up the rope ladder, so I turned my attention to the half built, single pony sized elevator. Mechanically speaking, everything that was needed was present. It merely lacked finesse, safety, walls, and so on.
"How did you get down, Demi?" I asked.
"In that," she replied. "It's a little scary, but not as scary as having to climb down a ratty rope ladder."
"Yay," I responded. "Something that I can use without having to first repair it." I stepped onto the platform, and tapped the 'up' button with my hoof. With a lurch, it began to rise. Above me a winch salvaged from who-knows-where was winding up the cable. A second cable also ran up to the head, ran over a pair of pulleys, then dropped into a guide tube heading back down. I followed the tube with my eyes, seeing it terminate just below the Level One platform. From it the other end of the cable extended, coupled to a counterweight. So some pony had done their research into elevator mechanics. I wondered if it had been Lee's or Gadget's design.
The elevator came to a stop, level with the surface, and I shuffled off it, and into the barricaded area. Immediately, the elevator began on its way down again. I could hear Lana speaking, quietly talking as if trying to encourage someone to do the impossible. Looking up, I saw she had managed to get up to where Ruby was chained, and was trying to get her body to drink a healing potion. The colt was just sitting there, his eyes wide as he absorbed the horror of the situation.
"What are you doing, Lana?" I quietly asked, trying to put as much compassion into my voice as possible.
"Trying to save Ruby," she responded. "Violet is no longer with us, but Ruby is hanging on, only just."
"Holy Celestia!" I exclaimed. "Can you unchain her if I take her weight?"
"Yes," Lana responded, putting away the healing potion, then moving to detach Ruby as I levitated the critically injured mare. Moments later her chains fell free, and I carefully lowered Ruby down onto the ground in front of me. As soon as she was safely resting in front of me, I turned my magic to Lana, and plucked her off the tower too, lowering her down to my side. Lana immediately pulled out the healing potion again, and tried to get the unconscious pony to drink.
"We need to inject it into her," I suggested, unsure of how we would go about that with the equipment currently to hoof. "Demi? Can you go back down and see if you can find any sort of syringe?" I requested as the elevator delivered Demi to the surface.
"Will do," she answered, poking the controls of the elevator. Immediately it began descending.
As I was contemplating how best to help Ruby while I waited, a shadow passed overhead, accompanied by the fluttering of large wings. An alicorn, a purple so dark she was almost black, descended, then with a little awkward maneuvering, managed to land opposite us on the narrow strip of ground between the barricade wall and the shaft. She made no hostile actions, so I remained passive towards her.
"You, the small mechanical pony," she addressed me. "The Goddess wishes to speak to you."
"Tell the Goddess I am too busy trying to save this pony's life to talk right now," I responded, again turning my attention to Ruby. Carefully, I used my magic to clean the dirt out of her gaping wounds, and tried to fold her flayed skin back to where it belonged. The alicorn remained silent, watching.
"You, alicorn," I demanded, "can you help this pony?"
"I will do as you request. In turn you will listen to the Goddess," she stated, bending forward to look at Ruby.
Suddenly there was a flash, and Lana, the colt and I were the only ones remaining. Of Ruby and the alicorn, there was no trace.
Footnote: No level change. Perk: none
Special thanks to the team of proof readers.